Simona Esperanza Munguía Fuentes

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Simona Esperanza Munguía Fuentes by CEPRODEL in Nicaragua. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 4 months of this loan, CEPRODEL will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

This Kiva Fellow had the good fortune to meet Simona Esperanza Munguía Fuentes yesterday in the market at the bus station in Leon where she sells hair care products, bandanas, jewelry, sandals and guayavas. As diesel buses roared in and out of the station to and from Managua, Doña Simona told me she opens for business each morning at 6 (after unpacking and setting up her sales displays) and closes at 5 p.m. when she packs everything up to be kept overnight in the market's storage area. Sometimes she loses sales because she is forced to close early when the storage manager on duty decides he wants to quit early. This is very frustrating to her

Doña Simona pays rent to store her merchandise overnight in the market and for her sales area space from where she sells during the day. Her 23-year-old daughter (pictured) helps her and handles sales when Doña Simona travels by bus to Managua each week to buy new merchandise.

A mother of two other adult children, Doña Simona has been in sales since she was a little girl who helped her mother sell food. Five years ago, Doña Simona sold bread from house to house. In the future, she would like to build a stall for her market space to better display her merchandise and to have more room. She also would like to start saving. She thanks Kiva lenders for investing in her business.

About CEPRODEL:

Founded in 1991, the Centro de Promoción del Desarrollo Local (CEPRODEL) is a nonprofit organization (NGO) based in Managua that provides socioeconomic development programs in rural and urban communities throughout western Nicaragua. More than 75% of Kiva’s CEPRODEL loans are to women. If you enjoyed this journal and would like to receive occasional updates on the work CEPRODEL is doing Join the Fans of CEPRODEL Kiva Lending Team , make another loan to a CEPRODEL client if available, and/or tune into the next episode of the novela, "As the Microfinance Mundo Turns," on the Kiva Fellows Blog.